Conspiracy Column: The Bermuda Triangle

Although infamous for mysterious disappearances, the Bermuda Triangle is not much different from the rest of the ocean

David+Broad%2C+CC+BY+3.0%2C+via+Wikimedia+Commons

David Broad, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Jordan Copsey

One of the most famous mysteries of all time, the Bermuda Triangle is the place where hundreds of planes and ships have gone off the radar without any trace. No black box recordings or any signs of destruction or scraps of metal have ever been found. What is the secret behind the triangle, and why do planes and ships just disappear? 

Though it’s infamous for mysterious disappearances, the Bermuda Triangle doesn’t have an increasingly bigger difference in disappearances than the rest of the oceans. One of the first disappearances within the triangle was the USS Cyclops in 1918. This massive shipping container was going to Baltimore, Maryland from Barbados. The trip was supposed to take 9 days. Red flags were raised when the ship never showed up in Maryland. The ship had been going all the time, with no stops. They searched for the vessel for around 3 months, but nothing was found. 309 passengers were gone without a trace. To this day, the remains of the vessel have never been found. In 1945, five navy planes that carried 14 men were lost. They were doing training, and the last thing said by any of the men was by Lieutenant Charles Taylor saying “We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don’t know where we are, the water is green, no white.” This case was investigated by the Navy and deemed as “cause unknown,” like most of the disappearances.

Many have speculations as to what happens in the Bermuda Triangle. Some believe there is a Mythical City lying under the sea that is using its “crystal energies” to sink ships and planes. A second theory is the existence of time portals. However, this doesn’t make too much sense, because why would a rift in the space-time fabric open up in the middle of an often traveled ocean? Though that is fun to speculate about, the last theory is more factually based. Many think it can be explained through science. They speculate that ships and planes are being destroyed by pockets of flammable methane gas, which there is an abundance of in the ocean. So, in theory, if an electrical spark ignited a huge bubble of methane that came up to the surface near a ship, it could easily cause the ship to sink without evidence of its disappearance.

Ultimately, the Bermuda Triangle is not any different from the other parts of the oceans. Ships and planes going missing is not unheard of, but the suspicious nature of disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle has captured the attention of many. Part of the mystery lies in the fact that most of the ocean has yet to be explored, and perhaps hidden in its depths are the answers that we have been searching for.